Dictatorship, DemocraticRestoration and the EraDictatorship, DemocraticRestoration and the Eraof1967-1989The period from 1967 when the banal but brutal regime of the Colonels stoleGreek democracy until the fall of the Socialist government in 1989 was one ofthe momentous epochs in Greek history. Socially, economically, and culturallythe Greece of 1967 would bear only a passing resemblance to the Greece of1989. Politically, many of the key issues that had shaped the history anddevelopment of the nation - the constitutional question, Greece's place in theworld, etc. - would either be resolved or moved closer to resolution. In thischapter, then, we shall trace the development of Greek society over these twoimportant decades.THE JUNTAThe leaders of the self-styled 'Glorious Revolution' were Colonels GiorgosPapadopoulos, Nikolaos Makarezos and Brigadier General Stilianos Pattakos.Their regime came to be called the junta or simply the Colonels. The leadingmembers of the junta were mostly officers from lower-class backgrounds whohad achieved career advancement through the armed forces. Many of themhad previously served or were actively serving in the intelligence services, andsome of them had received training in the United States. Moreover, most ofthem had been active in the right wing machinations of the parastate for sometime. Papadopoulos, for example, had been the leader of the National Unionof Young Officers, a group noted for its 'fervent nationalism and anticommunism[and its] contempt for parliamentary democracy'.1 A number ofgroups within the military were conspiring with King Konstantine to overthrowor temporarily suspend democracy. The primary one that we know aboutinvolved General Giorgios Spandidakis and other high-ranking officers. TheColonels were part of that group. But fearful of losing their posts because oftheir involvement in right wing conspiracies, a worry that was exacerbatedwhen the generals kept postponing the date of the coup, the Colonels struckfirst.2198 Dictatorship, democratic restoration and the era of PASOKIn the early hours of 21 April 1967, tanks rolled through the streets ofAthens. Some of them entered Sintagma Square and trained their weapons onthe Parliament. Others shut down the main arteries into and out of the city.The key communications facilities were commandeered, giving the coupleaders control of the airwaves. Within a matter of hours, all of the majorpolitical figures had been detained or placed under house arrest 'for their ownprotection'. The CIA-trained Hellenic Raiding Force seized the headquartersof the Greek armed forces.The people of Athens awoke that morning to news broadcasts announcingthe takeover. 'The revolution, carried out bloodlessly, marches forward tofulfillment of its manifest destiny! Greeks, pure and of a superb race, let theflowers of regeneration bloom out of the debris of the regime of falsehood.'3The Colonels' claims that they staged the coup in order to forestall aCommunist takeover are simply not credible. No such threat existed. Theywere able to succeed because of the vacuum of leadership which existed inpolitical life at the time and because they were able to strike quickly andeffectively. By seizing all of the major defence and communications facilities,they presented an unsuspecting nation with a fait accompli.As Thanos Veremis scathingly notes, 'The Colonels came to power with noclear policies, no coherent ideology of their own, and no consistent views onthe shape of the regime or the nature of its future options'.4 Initially the junta'smain problem was legitimacy and so it tried to rule through the King and theexisting political system. They could find, however, very few politicians whowould cooperate with them and immediately began to arrest prominentcentrist and left wing politicians and anyone else who showed any signs ofresisting the takeover. Within a matter of days, 10,000 people were arrested,including all of the major politicians. Prime Minister Kanellopoulos, GeorgePapandreou, and Andreas Papandreou, for example, were arrested in nighttimeraids during the coup.5 Finding a paucity of notable politicians whowould work with them, the junta looked to the King to prevent the regimefrom becoming an international pariah. In the days immediately after 21 April,Konstantine had been approached by a number of military officers who urgedhim to oppose the junta by force. But his equivocation gave the coup leaderstime to remove those officers from their posts and the opportunity to nip thedictatorship in the bud was lost.After that unfortunate development, Konstantine cautiously agreed tocooperate. The pretence of parliamentary democracy was maintained andKonstantine Kollias, former Prosecutor to the Supreme Court, became PrimeMinister. But power lay with the Colonels who were given ministerialappointments in the Kollias government. Once sworn into office the newadministration suspended the relevant articles of the constitution thatprotected civil liberties, until all of the radical elements had been purged fromsociety. Based upon the principle of 'guided democracy,' in May 1968 the juntaappointed a Constitutional Commission to draft a new constitution; displeasedby the document drafted by this group, the Colonels cobbled togethertheir own version which was ratified in a rigged plebiscite in November 1968.These moves, plus the increasing use of violence and torture to quell all opposition,were too much for the young king to tolerate, and by summer he wasopenly disavowing the regime. As he told United States President Lyndon B.Johnson at a meeting in September, 'This is not my government!'6While abroad, he contacted many of the leading politicians, likeKonstantine Karamanlis, who either were already in exile or who had fledwhen the Colonels came to power, seeking their support. Emboldened by theresponses he received from leaders abroad, when he returned to Athens in theautumn, the King organized a counter-coup. Calling on some pro-monarchygenerals to mobilize a few small forces with which to seize key facilities, theKing planned on making a broadcast urging the Greek people to rise up andjoin him. The counter-coup of December 1967 was poorly planned and evenmore poorly executed. It failed miserably. Konstantine fled into exile. Inabsentia, he was deposed and, after a period of time during which a regencywas imposed, the monarchy was eventually abolished in 1974. How ironic itwas that the slide toward the final demise of royal rule was commenced notby bourgeois republicans or Communist cadres but by forces of the Right - themonarchy's previous bastion of support.With the King removed and the monarchy abolished, Papadopoulos roseto the top of the regime and remained there until November 1973. The junta'saims and policies were a curious mix of populist reforms and paternalisticauthoritarianism backed up by propaganda and terror. The over-arching,proclaimed intent of the Colonels was to purge Greek society of the moralsickness that had developed since the war. The symptoms of this disease werethe supposed spread of Communism and the failure of liberal democracy toachieve the union of Cyprus with Greece. The Colonels sought to create a new'Helleno-Christian' state and this goal shaped their domestic agenda.7Some of their more ludicrous policies were the banning of miniskirts andthe imposition of mandatory hair length for men. Most of their domesticinitiatives were aimed at removing anyone whose loyalty to the regime wassuspect and at forcibly indoctrinating society with their peculiar brand ofmessianic nationalism. The civil service was revamped and anyone who didnot pass the loyalty litmus test was removed. The judiciary and the legalprofession likewise were stripped of independent thinkers.200 Dictatorship, democratic restoration and the era of PASOKSpecial emphasis was placed on reforming the education system. Inaddition to removing teachers and professors who did not toe the party line,the entire curriculum and the textbooks used in classes were revamped toreflect the Colonels' politically correct view of Greece's past. While recognizingthe importance of controlling the flow of information and propaganda, 'thejunta's media "philosophy" was so simple as to defy analysis'.8 Theirsloganeering was simplistic and provided Greeks with a source of satire andjokes. Though they were by and large ineffectual in getting out their ownmessage, the dictators were more efficient in silencing, with their usualbrutality, the opposition press.9The Colonels inherited a fairly sound economy and that, more thananything that they actually did, accounted for the continuing growth of theGreek economy from 1967 to 1972. The junta endeavoured to attract foreigncapital and industry to Greece, and it tried to wean back the major Greek shipownersby offering them very generous concessions. This worked to some extent,though the benefits to the Greek economy of these policies were negligible.The Colonels borrowed heavily to finance their economic programme, andthat fiscal irresponsibility would leave a lasting mark. One result at the timewas inflation. But because they had muzzled the trade unions and otherworkers' associations through brutal repression, they were able to keep wagesstable. More than anything else it was remittances from emigrants abroad andtourism that kept the fragile economy growing under the inept control of themilitary regime.10 The only major economic 'achievement' of the junta was toexaggerate even further the maldistribution of wealth in Greek society.Like so much else about it, the junta's foreign policy reflects a curiousmixture of ideologies and intentions. Shortly after seizing power the regimefound itself a pariah among European states. A group of northern Europestates filed complaints with the Council of Europe over the widespread use oftorture and the rampant trampling of individual civil liberties by thedictatorship. The Colonels resigned membership in the Council only daysbefore their regime was to be kicked out of the organization. Many Europeannations remained steadfast in withholding their recognition of what theyconsidered to be a rogue regime.Greece's relationship with NATO, however, was complicated, even thoughmany of the same countries that belonged to the Council of Europe, were inNATO. The primary reason was the United States which was the first countryto accord official recognition to the Colonel's government (Turkey and GreatBritain did shortly thereafter). Even so, President Lyndon Johnson openlyexpressed his disquiet with the regime. It was under his successor, RichardNixon, that relationships between the two countries became more cordial.The junta 201Partly this was due to personal factors, in particular the friendship betweenVice President Spiro Agnew and a number of prominent members of thepowerful Greek-American business community, which supported thedictatorship. Partly it was due to geostrategical factors. The Mediterranean hadbecome a hot spot in the late 1960s. The seizure of power by Muammar alQadhafi in Libya and the election of Dom Mintoff in Malta had deprived NATOof some key naval bases. At the same time, the continuing Arab-Israeli conflictand the increased Soviet naval presence in the region called for NATO and theUnited States to expand their forces in the region. More than ever in the ColdWar era that meant that the west needed Greece. And so, though at timesrelations became testy, the junta maintained Greece's position in NATO anddeveloped a working relationship with the Republican Nixon administration.But because it was outcast from so much of Europe, the Colonels reached outto some unexpected places, like many of the Balkan members of the easternbloc, Albania and Rumania in particular, and some of the new states in whatcame to be called the Third World.11The regime of the Colonels never developed a broad base of popularsupport and remained in power largely through terror, intimidation andcoercion. They constructed a formidable secret police apparatus, whichundertook the systematic persecution of, at first, leftists and then anyonesuspected of opposing the regime. Torture and other human rights violationswere legion and widely reported by international organizations like AmnestyInternational.12 Indeed the brutality of the regime surpassed even the banalityof its domestic policies.The campaign of terror at home was effective, and so it was abroad thatresistance movements to the Colonels formed. This is not to say that therewere not resistance movements inside of Greece. As during the dark days ofNazi occupation, leftist parties provided a popular front within Greece. Whilethey proved more effective than other movements because of greater expertiseat clandestine activities, their radical political agenda drove off manymoderates and anti-junta centrists, thus preventing the formation of a unitedopposition. But resistance activities did take place. A group called DemocraticDefence formed very shortly after the coup, and they succeeded on a numberof occasions in embarrassing the regime. Even after some of its leaders werearrested and sent into internal exile to one of the Aegean islands, the groupcontinued to resist.13 On one occasion, for example, an assassination attemptwas made on the life of Papadopoulos, and just barely failed in its mission.Nonetheless, the wholesale use of terror, repression, and exile effectivelyhamstrung all concerted attempts at open resistance at home. Strict censorshipof the press and other media also made it very difficult for opposition to202 Dictatorship, democratic restoration and the era of PASOKbe expressed in public. Instead Greeks found clever ways to couch theiropposition to the dictatorship by, for example, revitalizing traditional protestsongs that had been incorporated into the national discourse and thusproviding a veiled cover to the songs' real intent. Art and literature were alsoemployed'as poignant weapons of the weak to challenge the police state.14Also very active at the time were various groups that formed abroad inLondon, Paris, New York, and elsewhere. Prominent among the overseas antijuntagroups was the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK) led by AndreasPapandreou. It and organizations like it were instrumental in keeping the issueof the junta and its actions before the eyes of the international community.But it was the junta's own ineptitude and lack of legitimacy that led eventuallyto its downfall.Three developments more than all of the others brought down theColonels. The first was the student movement, the second was the globaleconomic crisis of the early 1970s that plunged the Greek economy intoturmoil, and the third was Cyprus. In January 1973, university students beganto challenge the authority of the dictators. At the Law School and MedicalSchool in Athens, at universities in Thessaloniki and loannina, students heldprotests, boycotted classes and in other ways disrupted the higher educationsystem. On one occasion, Papadopoulos himself called for meetings with bothacademics and students, and made clear to them that he would never allow'Communists' to bring down the universities. Large-scale student demonstrationsthat openly defied the junta's ban on public assemblies began inOctober 1973. When the students occupied the Polytechnic University inAthens in November and began to broadcast on clandestine radios calling forthe people of Athens to rise up against the tyranny, the junta had to respond.They did so brutally by calling in the army. The streets of Athens ran withblood as tanks crushed the gathering on the night of 17 November 1973.15The Polytechnic incident showed the bankruptcy of the regime and itdemonstrated that resistance was not futile. Papadopoulos was toppled frompower by a coup from his own right wing. Dimitirios loannides, former headof the secret police, replaced him and the junta lurched even further to theright. With this change in power, the issue of Cyprus once more took centrestage. During the first six years of the junta, the relationship between the Greekleadership and Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus, had becomeseverely strained. The Cypriot leader repeatedly called for a gradual, diplomaticsolution to the island's bitter troubles. And so he was no supporter ofthe junta's hard line on unification. Moreover, the island had become, with histacit support, a haven for opponents of the dictatorship at the same time thatits President was pushing for the recall of the Greek National Guard. At leastKaramanlis and the restoration of democracy 203one assassination attempt was made upon Makarios and many others wereplotted, and the junta was complicit in all of them.Believing that a major nationalist cause would rally the people behind himloannides order yet another assassination attempt on Makarios. It failed, butit provided Turkey with a pretext to intervene. On 20 July 1974 (five days afterthe failed assassination attempt), Turkey invaded Cyprus. Turkish forces sweptacross the northern part of island.16 loannides called immediately for a fullmobilization of the Greek military: nothing happened. The regime had lostwhatever base of support it had previously enjoyed.The Colonels had to go. Military leaders, some of whom had escaped theearlier purges and others who in fact owed their positions to the Colonels,made it clear that they would no longer support the regime, and that they wereprepared to use force if necessary to expedite their removal. At home andabroad, politicians from the pre-junta parties met and debated the country'sfuture. Two men, one in Paris and one in London, anxiously awaited the resultsof the various deliberations.King Konstantine and Konstantine Karamanlis had been two of the leadingfigures in exile who had presented the Greek case to the wider world, thoughthey had done so in very different ways. The two had met in June and decidedto cooperate when the time came. The King's position, however, was tenuoussince the constitution of 1968, which, as we saw earlier, had been ratified byan, albeit suspect, popular referendum,17 and had severely curtailed the powersof the monarchy. The hastily convened committee of military commandersand politicians in Athens decided that only Konstantinos Karamanlis possessedthe ability and the level of popular support needed to dismantle thedictatorship and to restore democracy to Greece. On 24 July, the phone rangin his Paris apartment and Karamanlis received the call to return to his homelandand to save it from chaos. The other Konstantine sat in his London suite,waiting by a phone that did not ring. The restoration of democratic rule wouldproceed without a king.KARAMANLIS AND THE RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACYKonstantine Karamanlis faced the formidable task of clearing the wreckage leftby the seven years of military rule. There were two major domestic missions:the restoration of a full range of political parties and re-establishing themilitary as a positive force. Having been sworn into the office of PrimeMinister, Karamanlis formed a council of ministers drawn from the leadingpoliticians of the old centrist parties in order to establish a Government of204 Dictatorship, democratic restoration and the era of PASOKNational Unity. Shortly thereafter, the council issued the 'Constitutional Actof August 1st.' This act restored the Constitution of 1952 until such time as anew constitution could be drafted and ratified. The Act, however, stipulatedone important change to the old charter: it left the issue of the monarchy inlimbo until a popular referendum could be held. The 1952 Constitution, followingthe model of the 1864 charter, created a 'crowned democracy' thatinvested sovereign power in the people. The Act restored democracy, but notthe crown.19 The immediate political goals of the Government of NationalUnity were the drafting of a new constitution and a legitimate referendum onthe monarchy, but crafting a new role for the military remained a controversialand imperative objective as well. In the late summer of 1974, the army stillpresented a clear and present danger to the restoration of democracy. AsKaramanlis's Minister of Defence, Evangelos Averoff, noted, the governmentwas still the 'prisoner of the army'. On 11 August, Karamanlis had a showdownwith military leaders at the Greek Pentagon and issued an ultimatum: 'Eitherme or the tanks'.20 He carried the day, but the future was still in doubt.In this uncertain climate, Karamanlis scheduled elections for November.But even before that he legalized the KKE, a symbolic step toward finallyending the tensions that had simmered under the surface of Greek politicssince the Metaxas regime.21 Karamanlis's newly formed party, New Democracy(Nea Demokratia, ND), swept into power with 54 per cent of the vote and220 seats in Parliament. Surprisingly, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement(Panhellinion Socialistiko Kinima, PASOK), which Andreas Papandreoufounded on the basis of his and junta resistance group, the PanhellenicLiberation Movement, received nearly 14 per cent of the popular vote with aplatform opposing western alliances and the monarchy. The Centre Union, theonly major pre-coup party to appear on the 1974 ballot, gained 21 per centof the vote - but it was soon to be a spent force. The United Left Party(Enomeni Aristera), a coalition of the pro-Moscow and anti-MoscowCommunist factions that had separated in 1968, received 9 per cent of thevote. Now other political questions loomed; most important of these werethe fate of the monarchy and the disposition of the junta and itsfollowers.22Karamanlis staged yet another referendum on the monarchy (the sixthsince 1920), in an effort to settle finally the rancorous debate that hadpoisoned Greek politics throughout the twentieth century. In December 1974,a majority of 70 per cent of Greek voters opted to abolish the monarchy. Notcoincidentally, this margin was nearly identical to the figure attained in theonly other legitimate vote on the monarchy, that of 1924, which hadestablished the inter-war republic. The Third Greek Republic thus came intoKammanlis and the restoration of democracy 205existence. King Konstantine remained in exile, still hoping that some day thecall beckoning him to his homeland would come.Punishing the junta and reforming the military and the civil service weremore delicate operations. Karamanlis wanted to avoid a repetition of themilitary retributions of the 1920s and to preserve relations between the civiliangovernment and the military. Nonetheless, the leadership had to be madeaccountable. Accordingly, the three top leaders of the junta, Papadopoulos,Makarezos, and Pattakos, were charged with a bevy of crimes, including hightreason, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and obstruction of justice.loannides was charged with many of the same offences. Over the course of twoyears, all were tried and convicted. During the proceedings, the Colonels madeabundantly clear the contempt they had for had for democratic society. Eachreceived death sentences that were later commuted. None of the more than100 civilian ministers who had served the junta was convicted of a criminaloffence. Many people serving in the military and the police were tried andconvicted of criminal offences, and universities were purged of juntasympathizers.On 8 June 1975 the Revisionary Parliament completed the new constitutionthat established Greece as a republic with a political structure modelledon that of France. The constitution vested great power in the president, whois obligated to choose as prime minister the leader of the party gaining themost seats in parliamentary elections. Until the constitution was amended in1986, the president could veto legislation, dissolve parliament, and call for adirect vote of no confidence in parliament. The sharp escalation of executiveauthority was controversial, but Karamanlis declared strong presidentialpowers necessary to deal with extraordinary episodes of Greece's politicalconflict. The five-year administration of Konstantinos Tsatsos, the firstpresident under the new constitution, passed without his using theconsiderable powers that had been given to his office. The legislative branchconsisted of a 300-person assembly elected by direct, universal, and secretballot. The constitution also protected fundamental civil liberties such asfreedom of assembly, speech, and association and it ensured the freedom ofthe press. The Orthodox Church was recognized as the 'established' rather thanthe 'state' church of Greece, thus allowing for the free practice of otherreligions. Nonetheless, the question of the rights of religious and otherminorities still presents this largely homogenous culture with problems. Byand large, however, the 1975 Constitution, still in force with some modificationstoday, established the framework of a modern liberal polity.23Cyprus continued to dominate Greek foreign policy in the mid-1970s. Fromthe Greek standpoint, the unresolved status of the island was chiefly the doing206 Dictatorship, democratic restoration and the era of PASOKof the United States, and a substantial anti-western backlash coloured Greekforeign policy during that period. Since the invasion of 1974, Turkish troopshave remained on the island. Although a ceasefire was negotiated in Genevain August, talks broke off almost immediately, and the Turkish army began toexpand its zone of occupation to a line that included 37 per cent of Cypriotterritory. Karamanlis, however, was intent on avoiding armed conflict, forwhich Greece was unprepared, and talks resumed shortly thereafter. In manyways, then, the new administration had at its disposal a relatively limited rangeof options.24 In 1975 a Turkish Federated State of Cyprus was declared in thenorthern part of the island, and negotiations continued intermittently foranother two years. A 1977 agreement divided the island provisionally, but nolasting, workable solution was achieved. In 2001 the fate of Cyprus remainsa pressing issue that continues to impair relations between Greece andTurkey.25The Greek public reacted to the Turkish presence on Cyprus withresentment toward NATO and the United States. In the view of many Greeks,the benefits of membership in a west European security organization weremeaningless if the alliance could not stop a NATO ally from invading a countrysuch as Cyprus. In protest Karamanlis withdrew Greece from military structuresof NATO, a status that remained until 1980. Greece held the United Statesand its foreign policy establishment particularly responsible for the Cyprusinvasions because of its failure to prevent Turkish action or to compel Turkey'swithdrawal after the fact. In 1975 the United States Central Intelligence Agencywas still widely held responsible for aiding the junta's accession and supportingits regime. This hostility was partly a backlash against the dependentrelationship of postwar Greece to the United States, partly the result ofresentment for United States support of the junta.26In blaming the United States for events in Cyprus, Greece also overestimatedits leverage over Turkey. Tension increased in 1976 when the UnitedStates, having partially repealed its arms embargo, exchanged $1 billion inmilitary equipment for military installations in Turkey. Greek protests resultedin a similar agreement with Greece, worth $700 million, and the establishmentof a seven-to-ten ratio that became the standard formula for United States aidapportionment between the two countries.In the late 1970s, two new issues exacerbated animosities between Greeceand Turkey. The first involved the control of the northern Aegean. Each sideclaimed (and still claims) large areas of the region on the basis of offshoreterritorial rights. Because the boundaries between mainland Turkey and theGreek islands in the Aegean are so close, the six-mile offshore limits oftenoverlap. Control of the continental shelf became much more critical with theKaramanlis and the restoration of democracy 207discovery of oil in the region. On three occasions since the late 1970s, Greeceand Turkey have nearly gone to war over this issue. Other sources of irritationwere the question of air control over the Aegean, Greece's attempts to extendits six-mile limit to the 12-mile limit used elsewhere, and the two countries'treatment of their respective Greek and Turkish minorities. The end of the ColdWar greatly diminished the incentive for cooperation against Communistneighbours, emboldening both countries to take more independent standsover regional issues.27The period of domination by the ND included concerted attempts atnational reconciliation. Economically, Karamanlis pushed for closer integrationwith Europe, a policy rewarded in 1981 with full membership in the EC.The ND government practiced statist capitalism, meaning that the state hadan intrusive and direct role in determining economic policy at the same timethat it tried to foster a free-market system. The primacy of the state ineconomic affairs was evident in all areas, from prices and wages to labour law.In post-junta Greece, the debate has centred on the degree, rather than theexistence, of government intervention in the economy.28Karamanlis called an election in 1977, a year earlier than required by theconstitution. A particular goal of this strategy was to obtain validation of hisgovernment's foreign policy initiatives. The major surprise of the 1977 electionresults was the rise of Andreas Papandreou and PASOK. ND's share of the votefell to 42 per cent (171 seats) while PASOK's share rose to 25 per cent (93 seats).The Centre Union dropped into a distant third place (12 per cent and 16 seats),barely ahead of the KKE (10 per cent, 11 seats). PASOK's success came largelyat the expense of the declining Centre Union, which split into factions shortlythereafter. ND's losses had multiple causes. Some ND supporters moved to anew far-right party, and the political equilibrium that Karamanlis had achievedsince 1974 removed some of the urgency with which Greeks had supportedhim in the previous election. ND lacked a clear ideology; instead, the charismaof its leader was its chief rallying point.29At the same time, PASOK's message had increasing resonance with the people.During the period between 1974 and 1981 PASOK managedto establish itself as an entirely new party with a newpolitical identity and novel ideas. It did this by exploiting,and at the same time transcending, the old divisions ofGreek politics, namely those between conservatives andliberals, communists and anti-communists, and byadvancing a new cleavage between the right-wing and theanti-right-wing forces.30208 Dictatorship, democratic restoration and the era of PASOKThus, in his rhetoric, Papandreou crafted a skilful mix of nationalism('Greece for the Greeks') and socialism ('PASOK in government, the people inpower'). PASOK promised a 'third road' to socialism and a middle way inforeign policy, restoring national pride by breaking the bonds of foreigndependency and reorienting Greece with the non-aligned countries. PASOK'sstructure also gave it a base of grass roots support that other parties lacked.Besides its strong central committee, PASOK had local party offices and cadresin towns and villages across Greece. This system proved very effective inorganizing support and validating the claim that the party was not based, likethe others, on networks of patronage. And, perhaps most importantly, PASOK'sslogan of 'change' (allayi) struck a chord with the Greek people's search for anew way forward after 40 years of conservative rule.of